CANCER DEATH 'WORSE THAN EXECUTION'

People diagnosed with cancer suffer a worse fate than the worst mass murderer, peers were told as they were urged to free doctors to innovate.

Lord Saatchi also insisted death by hanging, firing squad or the electric chair were less brutal than "death by cancer", adding the law currently acts as a barrier to finding a cure for the disease.

The Conservative peer has introduced a Bill which aims to give legal protection to doctors who try out different procedures or treatments when they have exhausted other options.

Doctors believe they might be found guilty of medical negligence if they deviate from "standard procedure" and things go wrong, Lord Saatchi said.

But the proposed law attempts to remove this fear, peers heard, by defining "responsible innovation" and requiring doctors to take necessary steps before progressing with the treatment - such as consulting colleagues with appropriate qualifications and consider requests and opinions from the patient.

Lord Saatchi insisted the Bill would achieve improvements to the standard procedure, labelled as "endless repetition of a failed experiment", in a "safe and responsible" way.

The advertising mogul has been campaigning for law changes to enable more innovation in treatment since his wife, novelist Josephine Hart, died from a form of ovarian cancer in 2011.

Moving the second reading of the Medical Innovation Bill in the Lords, he quoted Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as he likened words from a court sentence of execution to those heard by patients on cancer wards in NHS hospitals.

Lord Saatchi said: "With only one difference - with Dickens the condemned were sentenced to death by a court of law, but I'm not aware that the cancer dead or the victims of any other terrible disease are guilty of any crime.

"Death by hanging, by firing squad, by electric chair - no human being has ever devised a more brutal execution than death by cancer."

He went on: "These cancer condemned suffer a worse fate than the worst mass murderer. While they await execution they are tortured.

"For them, hair loss is the good news. Less good news is their treatment regime - the drugs, the cycles of their administration, the surgical procedures - are often 40 years old.

"They create the same symptoms as the disease - nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting and fatigue.

"A beautiful woman's legs turn into elephant's legs. Her arms begin to make a herion addict's arms look attractive and her bosoms turn into raisins.

"And that is before the bad news - discovering that standard cancer treatment does such damage to the immune system that the cancer patient is quite likely to die from fatal infections like MRSA, E. coli, etc."

Lord Saatchi said the law could not cure cancer but does have the power to change the culture.

He explained: "Consider its impact on race, drink-driving, homosexuality, smoking in public places - no amount of exultation or guidance from on high could have achieved what the law has done.

"This law change will not cure cancer but it will encourage the man or woman who will.

"All cancer deaths are wasted lives. Scientific knowledge has not advance by one centimetre as a result of all these deaths, because the current law requires the deceased receive only the standard procedure - the endless repetition of a failed experiment.

"The current law is a barrier to progress in curing cancer."

Describing the best summary for the Bill, Lord Saatchi quoted Professor Norman Williams, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Lord Saatchi told peers: "He sums this Bill in six words - protect the patient, nurture the innovator. That is exactly what this Bill does."

Crossbench peer Baroness Masham of Ilton said the purpose of the Bill was laudable but she raised concerns about the protections it offered to patients.

She said: "The Bill will remove a layer of protection and redress for vulnerable patients who are harmed when their doctors act in a way which no other doctor would support.

"The Bill would encourage unsafe and unacceptable practice by doctors and lead to further tragedies and scandals, such as that of Dr Ian Patterson.

"The Bill would affect all forms of medical treatment, not just exceptional circumstances, such as when all evidence-based treatment options have been exhausted."

She added the Bill may also have no positive impact on innovation or no effect on funding, research programmes, clinical governance and professional and medical product regulation.

The peer added: "Properly considered, the law already offers protection against an allegation of negligence if he innovates responsibly."

Labour's Baroness Bakewell said she would offer "qualified support" to the Bill.

She said: "Doctors are devoted to solving the problems presented by their patients - that is what they live for and they want to be successful at what they do.

"What they seek to do is balance benefit against risk. There is no such thing as absolutely safe innovation. It carries risk and it is the responsibility of doctors and their advisors to assess those risks.

"I have also discovered Doctor Shipman casts a long shadow. I have run into situations in which medical men have wished to take certain steps and their healthcare supporters have been resistant to such change for fear of litigation.

"Clearly, there is an issue which exists throughout the caring professions about the nature, extent and possibilities of litigation. We need more facts, which is what happens in ethics committees, and we need many view points.

"Ethics committees have mushroomed because doctors take the law that exists very seriously and observe it, in my observation, with great scrupulousness."

Conservative peer Lord Cormack said: "I had some strong misgivings - if those misgivings were to be encapsulated in a single word, it is... quackery.

"We all know there are those who have through the centuries peddled remedies that can only benefit themselves not the people they sought to benefit.

"But my initial misgivings have to a large degree been answered by the knowledge that so eminent a legal luminary as Lord Mackay of Clashfern feels the Bill is both desirable and necessary, and also by the fact noble lords eminent in the medical profession have given it their support."

Tory Lord Colwyn said: "I am not sure the proposed legislation is necessary. Any need for additional support for doctors should be achieved through professional guidance not rigid statute."